In late March, 2025, a team of experienced DA-RC DXpeditioners, lead by 14DA028 Phil, took to the sea to deliver to deliver a weekend of thrilling Islands On The Air (IOTA) action from a diminutive island in the Pays de la Loire Region group.
Here is their report, as described by Phil…
On Friday 21st of March, I depart from the house at 5:30am to pick up 14DA014 Eric.
At 6:45am, we leave in the direction the Port of Fromentines, a small family resort near the town of Barre-de-Monts.
Arriving around 2pm, we take the time to stretch our legs and go for a walk along the beach while waiting to take the boat at 5:30pm.
14DA496 Marino comes to join us around 5pm and then we put all our bags and equipment in the trolleys to be loaded on the boat.
At 5:30 pm we set sail towards the island of Yeu, some 25 km off the Vendee Coast, navigating past tuna and lobster boats for which the island is famous.
30 minutes later we arrive at the port of Joinville on the north-east coast of the Île d’Yeu.
We picked up our belongings and travelled for more than 2.5km on foot to find the campsite where we would reside for the duration of our IOTA DXpedition.
Phew, because with more than 50 kg of equipment on my cart, the trek was becoming very exhausting!
After a short rest, we set up the transceivers on a camp table, and an antenna nearby, to establish some contacts for this first evening.
The portable IOTA station is composed of a Yaesu FT857d transceiver with 100w output and 2 antennas – a Skypper and a Bamby.
Active now as 14DA/AT021, the 1st QSO is with 3SD025 in Brazil at 5/1.
He’s followed by fellow French DX Men 14AT369 Alain at 5/1 and 14CI177 Olivier at the same signal.
Only 19 QSOs are achieved for this first evening.
On Saturday morning, we set up the Skypper antenna and resume the 14DA/AT021 activity with 14AT224 David at 4/1 first to appear.
With average propagation, we end this day with 108 more stations in the log.
Sunday morning, we take to the Yaesu’s HH microphone again with 14GIM035 Sylvain at 5/1.
The propagation, however, is absent for much of the day and we end the activity with 9PAT137 Denis whose signal is 5/1 from his home QTH in Canada at 6:47 pm.
Despite the challenging conditions, we were able to contact 151 operators across 27 DXCCs and 5 continents including 33 Delta-Alfa Members.
Also worked were Alex as 165DA/Y025 on Su Cardolinu Island and Fred as 338/14DA049 in the Marquese Islands.
For downtime, we walked along the beach to enjoy the WX and beauty of the island which is very pretty and rich in discoveries – not only just a wonderful location for DX work.
Thank you to all those who were able to be logged in with this capricious propagation and often in B/S.
See you soon for new adventures!
73 de Team [Eric 14DA014, Phil 14DA028 & Rino 14DA496]
LOG DATA
- QSOs: 151
- DXCC: 27 [3, 14, 2, 9, 34, 75, 47, 161, 1, 30, 18, 67, 165, 136, 173, 11, 13, 26, 31, 19, 108, 23, 4, 338, 10, 119 & 196]
- Continents: 5
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